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The story
Even as streaming has become the dominant way people listen to music, Hypebeast reports that CD sales have actually been climbing in the US over the past several years. Driving the trend: K-pop acts like BTS flooding the market with limited-edition CDs that fans snap up as collector’s items rather than something to actually play. The report also found that roughly half of CD buyers younger than Gen Z don’t even own a device capable of playing a CD in the first place. On 5ch, the thread about this “CDs nobody actually listens to” phenomenon split between commenters mocking K-pop’s merchandising tactics and others discussing why it’s worth holding onto physical CDs and records instead of relying purely on streaming.
CD sales are surging… but the reality is nobody’s buying them to listen to music
They’re selling like crazy either way…
I listen to music on streaming these days. Behind the scenes of services like Spotify and Apple Music — which have thoroughly taken over as the mainstream way to listen to music — Hypebeast has reported on the surprisingly strong growth in CD sales.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Lend me your Ami Suzuki CDs
Mine was Tobal Combat (likely the PS1 game Tobal No. 1 — any CD could be used to generate a monster)
💩 Ugh, so gross☆ (an old net-meme phrase for mocking something as creepy/cringe)
Complete-the-set bonus items, fan meetings,
or making you gacha (random-draw) for your favorite member's photocard —
at this rate the old CD voting tickets almost seem tame by comparison.
I mean, there are used CDs going for around 30,000 yen (roughly $200) these days…
> don't even own a device that can play a CD in the first place
Honestly, at that point just make them trading cards instead of CDs.
That 26.4 billion yen figure is total CD sales, not just BTS.
There are over 2 million Koreans living in the US,
and K-pop fandom is famous for "one person buying dozens of copies,"
so if anything that number seems kind of low…
…actually, maybe not.
"Don't need the chocolate~~! Don't need the CD~~~~~~!!
I just want the stickers and the celebrity merch and the bonus goodies~~~!!"
Same goes for manga — when I read a 20th-century Shonen Jump series digitally, the dialogue had been rewritten with phrasing that couldn't possibly have existed back then (it even dropped the name of a singer who hadn't even debuted yet at the time).
If you love something, hold onto the physical copy.
Kids today can't even listen to Namie Amuro or Tatsuro Yamashita (major Japanese artists largely absent from streaming).
Re: #28
Went back to my parents' place and found a bunch of my old CDs strung up outside (as bird scarers).
Come to think of it, I never once stopped to wonder what albums those hanging CDs actually were.
It'd be pretty entertaining if there were a show that tracked down CDs like that and investigated what songs were actually on them.
Some of them might turn out to be legendary albums.
And now some of those very CDs go for like 100,000 yen (roughly $700) apiece on the resale market with a premium slapped on.
Even the crows would be shocked.
They sell for like 10 yen (about 7 cents) at BOOKOFF.
Like a game of Old Maid, whoever's left holding it at the end just gets stuck with it.
I want that master-tape-level sound quality even in my car — I want that rich, convincing depth of sound.
That's the image people have, but honestly you just don't see it anymore.
Apparently it can spawn a rare monster, so the CD I lent my friend still hasn't come back… 30 years later.
There are plenty of Koreans and Korean-Americans living in the US, you know.
CDs, maybe a few decades.
Streaming might as well disappear the instant it's over.
Apparently modern CDs are actually built to last around 50 years.
Lol, this middle-aged reporter is fantasizing that kids younger than Gen Z are even listening to BTS in the first place.
…says the Employment Ice Age generation, jumping to conclusions as usual (lol)
"I'm on the cutting edge of the times, that's why I don't listen to CDs" — that's this idiot's one and only brag. So lame it's embarrassing.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
One factor behind the rising CD sales figures is said to be a “variant” sales strategy, where the same song gets released across multiple product versions to boost first-week chart numbers. In the K-pop industry especially, many fans buy dozens of copies of the same title to chase bonus items or trading cards, which helps inflate the aggregate sales data. This tends to get framed as an extension of AKB48-style merchandising, but the fact that roughly half of buyers don’t even own a playback device suggests CDs are shifting in character — from something you listen to, into something you collect. At the same time, commenters in the thread noted that streaming services can suddenly become unplayable due to licensing changes or service shutdowns, so if there’s a work you really love, it’s worth keeping a physical copy — suggesting the discussion isn’t purely K-pop criticism, but also reflects a broader wariness about how fragile digital distribution can be.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Music] CD sales are surging! But the reality is nobody’s buying them to listen to music… What’s actually driving CD sales?“
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